Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Scarier than a Stock Market Crash

They're reporting it as a touchy-feely human-interest story. A farmer decides to open up his fields to the public after he's harvested, so that regular people can pick through for anything left behind by the harvesting machines. He grows potatoes, beets, carrots, onions, pumpkins and leeks. And guess how many people came to pick through his fields for these non-glamorous vegetables? 40,000.

Unless he also served free popcorn and beer, it makes me a little bit worried about the state of our economy that 40,000 people were willing to do farm labor for root vegetables. Free or not, Americans don't even like beets.

6 comments:

Being a farm kid I can say that there probably isn't enough left over for 40,000 people. We used to have potato fights on the harvester...those were good times. And then the harvester broke and we had to hand pick the 20 acres of potatoes; that, I can tell you, isn't much fun. I also used to go with my grandma to the bulk tank with a big pitcher to get milk - fresh from the cows - and eggs from under the chickens. I think if those 40,000 people bought a cow and a chicken they would be better off in the long run.

You gave me a shudder, remembering picking eggs from under chickens. I'm afraid of birds. If I had to raise my own chickens, I'd do without eggs. Cows on the other hand seem like mellow animals to have around, and my back yard is kind of big for a city lot...